China's First Domestic Multi-Bend Bending Machine Unveiled in Yangzhou – 4 Times Faster Than Manual Elevator Production

Yesterday, the first domestically-produced multi-bend bending machine was unveiled at the Yawei Machine Tool Company in our city. This machine not only breaks the foreign product monopoly but also significantly improves elevator production efficiency. While it takes time to manually produce one elevator, this machine can produce four.

Many of the elevators we use in our daily lives are made in China, but the machines used to manufacture elevators are often imported from abroad. One of the major challenges in elevator production is the use of bending machines. Currently, domestically produced equipment can only perform single-sided bending, and manual assistance is needed when dealing with multi-sided bending.

In particular, the difficulty arises when producing elevator doors. What appears as a flat elevator door is, in fact, a "square box" with panels on the outside and inside. Mr. Liu, an engineer at Yawei Machine Tool, explained that the production of elevator doors requires bending different panels to create a "square box," much like folding a piece of paper into a box shape.

Bending machines are crucial for this process. High-end bending machines are currently dominated by foreign giants. While domestic companies do produce bending machines, these machines can only achieve single-sided bending and cannot perform multi-sided bending like their foreign counterparts.

Reporter inquiries revealed that the key difference between single-sided and multi-sided bending is production efficiency. Multi-sided bending forms all sides in one step, whereas single-sided bending requires manual adjustment in between each bend. In theory, the operational efficiency of multi-sided bending machines is four times that of single-sided bending machines. In other words, while it takes manual assistance with a single-sided bending machine to produce one elevator, a multi-sided bending machine can produce four.

Mr. Liu stated, "The most significant feature of our machine is its capability for multi-sided bending. This machine can bend all four sides in one step. The main advantage of one-step forming is that it significantly improves production efficiency. Since a single-sided bending machine requires manual adjustments between each bend, it wastes a lot of working time. In theory, multi-sided bending machines are four times more efficient than single-sided ones. This means that, while manual assistance is required for a single-sided bending machine to produce one elevator, a multi-sided bending machine can produce four."

He also explained that this machine is not limited to elevator production but can also be used in the manufacturing of household appliances such as refrigerators and microwaves, as well as other manufacturing businesses that require bending processes.

Jiangsu Yawei Machine Tool, a company located in Yangzhou, is a leading enterprise in the domestic machine tool industry. Currently, the company has achieved systematic production of machine tools that are used in various manufacturing sectors, including the automotive, household appliance, and elevator industries, and these products are exported to numerous countries and regions such as Europe and the United States.

For example, in the elevator manufacturing industry, Yawei has acquired the capability to produce a complete set of elevator machine tools. During the product appraisal meeting held yesterday, two products were highlighted: the "coil material punching and shearing automated processing system" and the "numerical control right-angle shearing flexible processing unit."

According to another engineer at Yawei, Mr. Huang, the initial raw material for elevators is steel, and steel usually comes in a coiled form. "In the past, to produce elevator doors, the steel had to be cut into flat panels for further processing," he explained. Their technology now allows direct processing of the coiled material, which significantly reduces waste caused by cutting.

"The second product is the shearing machine. In China, these machines can only shear in a single direction, whereas our product can shear from two different directions. The two shears are positioned at a right angle, allowing for shearing from two directions for elevator door panels."

These three machines, the coil material punching and shearing machine, the multi-bend bending machine, and the shearing machine, constitute the "production chain" for elevator manufacturing. Liu expressed that their aim is to achieve systematic production across various manufacturing sectors.

    通讯员 王学忠 记者 朱轩卿